Tai’an, China – After a six hour bus ride this morning to Tai’an, the NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars took to a brand new arena and a capacity crowd of 5,726 and secured the final victory of their tour with a 97-83 victory over the Chinese National Team.

Bus legs, plane legs, whatever you might call it, the USA team had it in the first half of their game tonight. Struggle as they did, they still went in to halftime down by only four points at 48-44.

As much as the USA tried early on in the third quarter, China continued to pull away to build a 60-50 lead, but then….something changed.

Drew Barham (24 points, 11 rebounds), Greg Gantt (18 points) and Darren Moore (10 points) sparked an 18-4 run over the final 4:23 of the quarter to take the lead for good over China at 73-69.

At this point China was shell-shocked and the barrage continued through the fourth quarter as four straight baskets by Moore and big man Tom Granado pushed the lead up to 12. The Americans would cruise from there to the final 15-point victory.

Again, the USA All-Stars had six players reach double figures. Greg Howard continued to come back from a slight injury to his heel to record his third double-figure game of the tournament with 11 points. Greg Gantt’s 18 points was his best output of the series.

Big men Tom Granado and Kevin Kotzur both hit double-figures with 11 and 10 points respectively. Ramon Harris, continued to pound the boards and have strong minutes despite being limited with some lingering effects from the first game. Anthony Jones came up with three huge blocks late in the game that helped the USA All-Stars push their lead out. And Kiwi Gardner set the tone defensively snagging four steals, three in the second half.

NetScouts Basketball USA All-Stars Head Coach James Andresevic “We knew at some point we’d be playing 5 on 8 here in China….and that was certainly the case throughout the game tonight. We battled through a little fatigue early in this game, but in the end, were able to wear China down and come away with a solid victory. It’s never easy to beat the same team three times in a row, especially on their “home court”. But the guys went in to the locker room and came out and played with a lot of pride in that second half. “

The team will have a small community event in the day tomorrow and then will have a day free on Monday to see some of the sights in and around the town of Ji’Nan before returning home Tuesday.

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Managing Partner, NetScouts Basketball "The International Basketball Connection". Columnist, Basketball Times and Huffington Post. College and Professional Basketball Scout.
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